California takes on an ocean of plastic waste, considers crackdown on industry

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SACRAMENTO — Even in an eco-conscious city like San Francisco, more than 9,000 tons of recyclables are dumped in landfills every year largely due to one culprit: flimsy plastics.

Low-grade plastics, such as shopping bags, padded online shipping envelopes and food packaging, are piling up in recycling centers. Part of the reason is that overseas markets such as China and the Philippines — which used to buy America’s trash by the shipload — are turning most plastics away.

California lawmakers say the state must act to stop plastics from crowding landfills and polluting the ocean. They’ve proposed sweeping legislation to require manufacturers to reduce the reliance on single-use plastics.

Supporters say the legislation reflects a game-changing realization: Supposedly recyclable plastic shipped overseas for decades often was never easily recycled. Instead, it polluted other countries.

That’s because the low-grade material has little value — it’s already broken down to a weak form and difficult to reuse profitably. Rigid plastics, such as water bottles and milk jugs, are easier to recycle.

The majority of the plastic that Bay Area residents throw away belongs in the “problematic” category, said Eric Potashner, vice president of Recology, the Bay Area solid-waste hauler.

“It is going to the landfill more often than not,” he said. “We can successfully sort those materials. The problem is, there’s no buyer.”

Some Democratic lawmakers say California can take the lead in solving the problem by passing laws aimed at reducing demand for plastics designed to be used once and tossed in the trash.

They say the solution also requires pushing the plastics industry to design recyclable products and reuse its own material — thereby replacing the lost overseas market.

Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

At Recology’s initial sort deck, Tim Coleman separates out pieces of environment-unfriendly flimsy and film plastic destined for landfill.

Two identical bills are at the center of the effort: AB1080 by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, and SB54 by state Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica. The measures would require the state to cut the amount of single-use plastics going to landfills by 75 percent by 2030, by either reducing use or making disposable plastics more easily recyclable or compostable.

But the effort faces powerful opposition from the plastics industry and business groups.

The California Chamber of Commerce has labeled the proposal a “job killer,” arguing that “unprecedented” regulations would dramatically increase costs to manufacture products in the state.

Tim Shestek, a lobbyist for the American Chemistry Council, which represents plastic companies, said the industry is “on record saying that we’re interested in a solution.” But he said the bills aren’t clear about what counts as a single-use item.

Shestek said the bills also wouldn’t do anything to improve California’s recycling infrastructure. Many communities aren’t set up to handle a huge influx of compostable trash or more recyclables, he said.

He said the industry has a goal of making 100 percent of plastic packaging reusable or recoverable by 2040, adding that the council wouldn’t set that goal “if we weren’t serious about trying to address the issue.”

However, lawmakers who support the bills say the accumulation of plastic pollution in marine habitats and elsewhere makes it clear that faster action is needed.

“Plastics are frankly strangling the health of our oceans,” Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said as the Senate debated SB54 last month. “This is a huge problem, and it’s time to move past baby steps to address it.”

Each bill passed in its house of origin last month, and could be amended before coming to a final vote. Lawmakers will probably decide at some point to advance a single version.

The proposals were already watered down so a requirement that manufacturers make all single-use plastics recyclable or compostable now would apply only to the 10 most-littered products.

Those 10 products — which could include such items as shopping bags and disposable utensils — would be determined based on state litter surveys. CalRecycle, the state’s recycling agency, would have authority to adopt the rules by 2023.

The bills would have a sweeping impact on shipping materials, requiring all packaging used by online retailers and others to be recyclable or compostable by 2023.

Peter Gallotta, a spokesman for the San Francisco Department of the Environment, said changes in consumer behavior, such as the growth of Amazon, have created far more single-use waste than the city dealt with in the past.

“The convenience culture is driving this culture of disposability,” he said. “That convenience really has come frankly at the expense of the environment.”

A related bill, AB792 by Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, would require beverage companies to use 75 percent recycled content in plastic bottles by the year 2034. The original measure called for 100 percent, but was amended after the soda industry lobbied for changes.

The American Beverage Association, which represents soda companies, still opposes the amended version of AB792. It argues that there isn’t enough recycled plastic on the market that meets safety requirements for beverage containers.

The bills, which are sponsored by Californians Against Waste and a host of other environmental groups, mark an important strategic shift for lawmakers wrangling with plastic pollution.

Past efforts focused on single products, like bans on plastic shopping bags and straws. But retailers have found workarounds, like shifting to thicker plastic bags that are “reusable” but still not easily recycled.

Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for Californians Against Waste, said the bills are unlike past legislation because they empower CalRecycle to make the rules so it can keep pace with changes in the plastics industry. He said advocates have grown frustrated by manufacturers’ reaction to the state’s efforts.

“Legislators realize you can’t keep saying no as whales wash up on our shores full of plastic bags,” Lapis said.